Fifty-six
years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was shot dead on the streets of
Dallas, Texas. The official story is that a lone nut named Lee Harvey Oswald,
without any motive, committed the assassination. During the past several
decades, however, the overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence, much of
which was intentionally kept secret, points to a national-security
regime-change operation to oust Kennedy from office and elevate Vice President
Lyndon Johnson to the presidency.
A
key to understanding the assassination lies in a critically important event
that occurred after the assassination. That event was the official autopsy that
was conducted on the president’s body. By understanding the autopsy, one can
gain a better understanding of the assassination itself.
That
was the purpose of my best-selling book several years ago, The Kennedy Autopsy, which was a
synopsis of a watershed five-volume assassination book entitled Inside the Assassination Records Review Board by
Douglas P. Horne, who was a staff member of the ARRB in the 1990s.
The
ARRB was the agency that Congress called into existence to enforce the
President John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992, the law that required
the CIA, the Pentagon, the Secret Service, and other federal agencies to
disclose assassination-related records that such agencies had insisted on
keeping secret since the day of the assassination. The law was enacted in
response to the public outcry produced by Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which
posited that the assassination was a national-security regime-change operation
carried out by the U.S. national-security establishment. At the end of the
movie was a blurb pointing out the national-security establishment’s continued
secrecy with respect to its assassination-related records.
The
Future of Freedom Foundation recently published my new book The Kennedy Autopsy 2: Lyndon Johnson’s Role in the
Assassination, which builds on the mountain of circumstantial
evidence surrounding the president’s autopsy supporting the thesis developed by
Oliver Stone in his movie and by Douglas Horne in his five-volume book.
Specifically, my new book documents the circumstantial evidence pointing to the
role that Lyndon Johnson played in the assassination.
Now,
before anyone cries “Conspiracy theory!” which is the term that the CIA
promoted early on to its assets in the mainstream press to dissuade people from
questioning the official version of the assassination, consider the following:
The
purpose of an autopsy is to determine the cause of death, which includes a
determination of where the bullets were fired from. Since this was a state
murder case, Texas law required that an autopsy be conducted on President
Kennedy’s body. That duty fell to the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Dr. Earl
Rose, who was one of the most competent pathologists in the country.
As
soon as Kennedy was declared dead, however, a Secret Service team had the
president’s body placed in an expensive, ornate casket and began taking it out
of Parkland Hospital. Rose refused to permit them to do that, standing in their
way, and declaring that he was required by state law to conduct an autopsy on
the president’s body. In loud, screaming voices, the Secret Service team made
it clear to Rose that they were operating under orders to take the body back to
Washington without permitting Rose to conduct his autopsy. When Rose continued
standing his ground, the Secret Service agents pulled back their suit jackets
and brandished their guns. Screaming, yelling, and issuing a stream of
profanities, they forced their way out of Parkland Hospital with Kennedy’s
body, in direct violation of Texas law.
Waiting
at Love Field was Lyndon Johnson, who was having seats removed from the back of
Air Force One to make room for the casket. That meant that he knew that the
casket was coming, which is virtually conclusive proof that he was the one who
issued that order to that Secret Service team before he departed from Parkland
Hospital.
Johnson
himself was actually the very first conspiracy theorist in the Kennedy
assassination. When he was at Parkland Hospital waiting to see if Kennedy would
die and then later on the way to Dallas’s Love Field, Johnson raised the notion
that the assassination might be the first step in a nuclear attack by the
Soviet Union on the United States.
Yet,
Johnson’s own actions establish that he knew that his conspiracy theory was
bogus. When he arrived at Love Field, he had his personnel transfer everyone’s
luggage from his plane — Air Force Two — to Air Force One, so that he could
ride on the presidential plane rather than the vice-presidential plane. Yet,
both planes were identical. He also took the time to find a federal judge to
swear him in, despite the fact that the U.S. attorney general, Robert Kennedy,
had advised him that no such swearing in was necessary. Johnson also took the
time to wait for the casket to appear and be loaded onto Air Force One.
Does
that sound like a man who was concerned that Soviet missiles might possibly be
raining in on the United States, including one being aimed at Dallas, Texas?
Wouldn’t a president who was genuinely concerned about such a possibility have
gotten up into the air immediately in order to conduct America’s defenses to
such an attack? Despite his words, Johnson’s actions indicate that he was
certain that the Soviets played no role in the assassination. There could only
be one reason for such certainty, even while promoting what he knew was a bogus
conspiracy theory.
When
Air Force One landed in Maryland, Johnson ensured that the president’s body be
turned over to the military rather than to civilian authorities. Why? America
isn’t a military nation. It’s a civilian nation. The United States wasn’t at
war, and Kennedy hadn’t been killed on the field of battle. Why the military
instead of a Maryland or Washington, D.C., medical examiner?
The
reason is that a fraudulent autopsy was needed to disguise the fact that shots
had been fired from the front of Kennedy. The accused killer, Lee Harvey
Oswald, was in Kennedy’s rear and, therefore, could not have fired from the
front.
Now,
before anyone cries “Conspiracy theory!” consider the following:
After
the House Select Committee Hearings on the Assassination, which reopened the
investigation into the assassination, several enlisted men came forward and
told a remarkable story. They said that they had secretly carried the
president’s body into the Bethesda morgue in a cheap, military-style shipping
casket similar to the ones being used to bring back bodies of U.S. soldiers
being killed in Vietnam. They said that they carried the body into the morgue
about 6:35 p.m., which was approximately 1 1/2 hours before the body was
officially carried into the morgue at 8 pm in the expensive, ornate casket into
which the body had been placed in Dallas. They said that military officials had
sworn them to secrecy, forced them to sign written secrecy oaths, and
threatened them with court martial and criminal prosecution if they ever told
anyone what they had seen and done.
In
the 1990s, the ARRB uncovered a written document prepared by a Marine sergeant
named Roger Boyajean, which had been prepared soon after the autopsy. The
document confirmed that the president’s body had in fact been secretly carried
into the morgue at 6:35 p.m. Boyayean himself confirmed to the ARRB the
authenticity of the document and the event itself.
Now,
before anyone cries “Conspiracy theory!” consider the following:
One
of the three autopsy physicians, Col. William Finck, later testified that on
the evening of the assassination he received a telephone call from Commander
James J. Humes, who was one of the other autopsy physicians. The purpose of the
call was to request Finck to assist with the autopsy. The call was made at 8
p.m., which was the same time that the president’s body was officially being
carried into the morgue in the expensive, ornate Dallas casket.
Finck
testified that Humes told him in that call that they already had x-rays of the
president’s body. The question naturally arises: How could they already have
x-rays at 8 p.m. if the president’s body was first being carried into the
morgue at 8 p.m.? Finck inadvertently confirmed the remarkable story that those
enlisted men would disclose several years later.
Now,
before anyone cries “Conspiracy theory!” consider the following:
The
ARRB summoned a woman named Saundra Spencer to testify. On the weekend of the
assassination, she was a U.S Navy petty officer working in the U.S. Navy’s
photography lab in Washington, D.C. She had a top-secret security clearance.
She worked closely with the White House on official photographs, including
top-secret ones. No one has ever questioned the veracity, competence, and
professionalism of Saundra Spencer. It would be virtually impossible to find a
more credible witness.
Under
oath, Spencer told the ARRB a remarkable story. On the weekend of the
assassination, she was asked to develop photographs of the autopsy carried out
by military officials on President Kennedy’s body. She was told that her role
was a highly classified operation. For some 30 years, she had kept the secret.
The
ARRB showed Spencer the military’s official autopsy photographs. She carefully
examined them. She testified directly and unequivocally that the photographs
were not the ones she developed on the weekend of the assassination. The ones
she developed, she said, showed a massive exit-sized wound in the back of
President Kennedy’s head, which implied a shot having been fired from the
front.
Now,
before anyone cries “Conspiracy theory!” consider the following:
After
Kennedy was brought into Trauma Room One in Parkland Hospital, the treating
physicians immediately began emergency treatment procedures. However, one of
the treating physicians summoned the others to view the back of the president’s
head. They saw a huge exit-sized hole in the lower back of President Kennedy
head. At that point, they knew that there was no way that they could save his
life. The statements of the treating physicians immediately after the
assassination confirm what Saundra Spencer would tell the ARRB some 30 years
later. See “RIP: Dr. Robert McClelland, the Most Important JFK
Witness” by Jefferson Morley.
For
much more on the events surrounding the autopsy as well as the events leading
up to Lyndon Johnson’s dramatic announcement that he was dropping out of the
1968 presidential race, read my new book The Kennedy Autopsy 2: Lyndon Johnson’s Role in the
Assassination.
Reprinted
with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation.
Copyright © 2019 The Future of Freedom Foundation